In 1946, President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act. Like the road to hell, it was paved with good intentions. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is now rife with fraud. Consider this: the NSLP currently serves 60 percent of all students in both public and private schools. We know that two-thirds of all Americans do not live at or below the 130 percent of the poverty level required for free school lunches. For every person who signs up for free and reduced lunch the school district gets extra benefits beyond the subsidy for the food itself. When...

The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA), originally passed in 2010 and heartily endorsed by First Lady Michelle Obama, is set to expire in September unless Congress acts to renew it. You may recall some of the details of that initiative including forcing all grains to be “whole grain rich” (whatever that means) and wiping out most of the salt in foods. Given the less then spectacular reception the program has received from schools – not to mention students – the GOP is looking at scaling back or at least modifying the rules. But The Hill was quick to characterize the...

In an effort to bring teenagers back to the cafeteria, Elmbrook School District high schools are dropping out of the federal school lunch program. The district has seen a slow decline in lunch participation, by about four percent overall, since the start of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, said Cheryl Peil, Elmbrook's director of food services. The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act is a federal bill that provides funding for multiple food programs intended to improve child nutrition. Districts who opt for the funding are required to abide by new, "common-sense standards for fat, saturated fat, sugar, and sodium,...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – School children who qualify for free and reduced lunches can receive free summer meals at thousands of locations throughout New York. Last year, almost 360,000 children participated in the summer meals program statewide, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office. Persons with disabilities, also can receive free nutritious meals and snacks at the summer meals sites. To find a free meal site near you, use this website. You can search the entire nation by clicking on "find sites."

(CNSNews.com)-- The School Nutrition Association (SNA), which represents 55,000 school nutritionists nationwide, is pointing to data published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)Â to draw awareness to the fact that â€śafter 30 years of steady growth in the National School Lunch Program, student participation is abruptly down in 49 states."The nutritionists attribute the drop to new nutrition standards that were instituted by USDA in 2012.Total national participation in the School Lunch Program peaked in 2010 and 2011 at 31.8 million, according to USDA. In 2012, it was 31.7 million. But in 2013, it dropped by 1 million participants, to 30.7...

There is a simple solution to ensuring that every child receives a nutritious meal: provide taxpayer-funded free lunches for all of them.During my year as an elementary school kitchen manager, kids came through my lunch line without money for all kinds of reasons: Some lost the check their parents had given them. Some had divorced parents who weren’t communicating. Others had single parents who just got busy and forgot to give them money. My school district mandates that, after three incidents in a row, kitchen supervisors take away that child’s hot lunch and replace it with a slice of cheese...

School is out for the summer, but youth can still return to some area schools for free lunch in the coming months. The federally-funded Summer Food Service Program provides free lunches for children 18 and younger, with the goal of making sure low-income students who receive free or reduced-price meals during the school year still have nutritious food to eat in the summer. Summer lunch programs are open to children of any income level, from any school district. “The main reason we do it is because the economy in our area is not the greatest,” said Terry Fuller, director of...

For the first time in the history of the school lunch program, all children in Baltimore are created equal.. Beginning this week, every student in the city, regardless of income level, is being offered free breakfast and lunch under a federal program that allows school districts to eliminate a decades-old meal-subsidy structure for students in high-poverty schools. Baltimore is among a handful of districts in Maryland taking advantage of the opportunity that was opened to schools nationwide last year. Maryland schools are able to adopt the program under state legislation passed this year in the General Assembly. Del. Keith Haynes,...

BEDFORD, KY (WAVE) – Several parents are fired up after hearing a student's hot lunch was dumped in the trash in front of her classmates because her lunch account was past due. Parents claim Bedford Elementary School did something it preaches against: In their words, "bullying" the child, not to mention wasting food to embarrass her. On May 20 an elementary school lunch was packed with a hidden punch a child never saw coming. "Someone came and took her lunch while she was sitting there with her friends and everybody else," said the girl's aunt, Leslie Chilton, who also happens...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is pushing back against a campaign criticizing First Lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch rules by showing one picture of a somewhat appetizing child’s lunch. “They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in the digital age we have ample opportunity to document and broadcast every moment, meeting and meal,” wrote Deborah Kane, the national director of the USDA Farm to School Program, in a blog post Thursday. “We have all seen those unappetizing photos of food served at school that quickly go viral,” she said. “A lonesome whole wheat bun atop a sad...

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) says a bill will be introduced in the House that will “put a salad bar in every single school in the United States of America.” Speaking at the Religious Action Center’s “Consultation on Conscience” event last month, Ryan told the Washington D.C. audience about efforts that will help “begin to end poverty.” […] “It starts to paint the picture of the kind of system that we want,” Ryan continued. “Now, we have a lot of school districts in Ohio and across the country, 70, 80, 90 percent of the kids in the school will be Medicaid—free...

All children, regardless of their circumstances, deserve safe, nourishing and delicious school meals.One of the best ways to help district nutrition programs as they transition to healthier food is to buy school lunch for your children. When I talk with parents about school food, many are so disappointed in the options their schools provide that they’ve simply opted out. They pack their children’s lunches every day, giving up on their school’s nutrition program as a lost cause. I understand and support parents who insist their children eat healthfully and responsibly. My dream is a nation in which all food –...

ROGERSVILLE, Tenn. – Meat dating to the year of President Obama’s first inauguration was served to students in some Hawkins County, Tennessee schools last week. Hawkins County Commissioner Michael Herrell was alerted after a cafeteria worker sent him a photo of the pork roast they used for school meals was from 2009. The 6-year-old meat had been frozen and then was thawed for meal preparation, according to WCYB. Herrell said the photo was taken at Joseph Rogers Primary School where the staff decided not to serve the meat. However, it was served at other schools.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The number of breakfasts served in the nation's schools has doubled in the last two decades, a surge driven largely by a change in how districts deliver the food. Instead of providing low-income students free or reduced-price meals in the cafeteria, they're increasingly serving all children in the classroom. Food policy advocates say the change increases equity, however, it's fueled a backlash from parents and teachers. They contend that it takes up class time that should be devoted to learning and wastes food by serving it to kids who don't want or need it....

He says it’s in compliance with the federal lunch rules championed by First Lady Michelle Obama. “The meal in this photo and other meals served by Portsmouth Public Schools meet nutritional and USDA requirements,” according to the food service coordinator. An unscientific poll by WAVY found 92.3 percent of respondents (10,138 people) did not believe the lunch was “acceptable.”

Here is Lady M, encouraging little children to develop and submit their very own “healthy lunch” recipe in order to win an invite to her Children’s State Dinner.Apparently she is unaware of a new pandemic sweeping the country that could be as serious as the obesity epidemic: orthorexia-nervosa. I’m deathly serious, it’s a real thing: A new type of eating disorder is emerging where people are becoming obsessed with eating to improve their health. Victims of this 'health food eating disorder' may exhibit the following symptoms: may be 'plunged into gloom' by eating a piece of bread may become anxious...

RIO RANCHO, N.M. – There’s one group of young eaters who like Michelle Obama’s school lunch program: pigs. New Mexico’s Galloping Grace Youth Ranch is accepting fruits and vegetables thrown away by students at several elementary schools in the Rio Rancho area and collects some five tons per week. Speaking of the pigs, goats and chickens gobbling up the students’ castaways, Wade says, “If you think about it, it’s a fresh salad bar every day. Fruits and vegetables and they love it.” To underscore the point, he’s talking about the farm animals, not the school children. The goats prefer romaine...

PALMETTO -- Gripping a squirt bottle of hand sanitizer in her gloved hands, school food bus driver Debra Valdez called to four children shyly making their way toward the brightly colored school bus with mom pushing the youngest one forward. "Y'all ready to eat?" Valdez asked with a smile. The four children were the first of more than 70 students who ate a free lunch Tuesday courtesy of the Manatee County School District Food and Nutrition Services Department. The district retrofitted a school bus last summer to feed students and brought the program back for spring break this week. The...

Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) has unveiled legislation to establish a program, so schools and food banks can offer meals to low-income students on weekends and holidays. Titus's bill would create a five-year pilot program for providing food to students eligible for free or reduced lunch during the week, when school is out. The Nevada Democrat noted the measure comes at the same time as many schools are out for spring break. Students who rely on meals provided during the school day for sustenance consequently might not have enough to eat. "Vacation from school should never mean hunger for children. This...

Guess What Makes The Cut As A 'Smart Snack' In Schools? Hot Cheetos Flamin' Hot Cheetos might conjure a lot of descriptors: spicy, crunchy, unnaturally fiery red. But it's a good bet that "healthy" didn't exactly spring to mind. Yet it turns out that those fiery Cheetos beloved by school children (some kids even made an epic rap paean to Hot Cheetos a few years ago) actually qualify as a "Smart Snack" under revised federal nutrition guidelines for schools. The Obama administration rolled out the new guidelines last year in a bid to limit the amount of junk food kids...

BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. -- Thousands of students have now stopped buying lunch each week in County cafeterias. The district says it all started when schools were forced to implement the USDA's Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act. It was part of first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative to get kids to eat healthier. All of a sudden, kids are pitching pounds of food in the garbage. "I like vegetables too, like I like spinach and potatoes - great - but they just don't have any flavor at all," freshman Aislinn French said. Hundreds of kids have now dropped out of...

After a second grader complained to First Lady Michelle Obama that she “ruined” Taco Tuesday with her healthy lunch rules, Trip Klibert has accepted the White House’s consolation: Bo and Sunny trading cards and a note from Mrs. Obama that said you’ll get used to it.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) is introducing legislation to relax the rules for healthy school lunches. At the School Nutrition Association’s (SNA) 2015 Legislative Action Conference at the JW Marriott Monday, Hoeven announced the Healthy School Meals Flexibility Act to give schools more flexibility in complying with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations when it comes to whole grains and sodium levels. The bill would allow schools to revert back to 2012 standards, which require at least half of all grains served in school breakfast and school lunch to be whole grain rich. The standard now is for 100 percent...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michelle Obama said Thursday that the U.S. has undergone a “culture change” in the five years since she started raising awareness about childhood obesity, but as she celebrated achievements on multiple fronts the first lady also warned that the progress is “incredibly fragile.” That’s because special interests “whose first priority is not our kids’ health” are “waiting for us to get complacent or bored and move on to the next trendy issue,” Mrs. Obama said at an annual health summit. She cited the fight over a recent child nutrition law as an example.

One “poor ugly soul” posted his visual reaction to Twitter. He’s holding a parody drawing of the famous Obama “Hope” propaganda poster from 2008. Except in this one, the student is holding a “Thanks Michelle Obama” sign in one hand and a fistful of vegetables in the other. Below it is the #thanksmichelleobama hashtag that has become synonymous with skimpy school lunches.

Mouthwatering photos of school lunches served around the world reveal even children in Ukraine, Estonia and Greece are treated to delectable meals each day. School children in America, meanwhile, aren't nearly so lucky. Whereas a kid in France might be treated to a juicy steak and a hunk of brie, the richest country in the world's youths are more likely to receive unidentified meat served alongside little more than a starch like white pasta, fries or a roll. The contrasts between America's school meals and those in far less fortunate economies are stark and suggest Michelle Obama's push for more...

NEW YORK – Advocates are struggling to get students to eat “healthy” lunches – even if they’re free. It’s not too hard to see why. Timothy Martinez qualifies for free lunches, but he and his classmates often skip meals and go hungry because the cafeteria food at Bronx Academy of Letters is inedible, according to DNAinfo. “When they serve us pizza, sometimes it’s not reheated all the way and you can see the frozen pieces in the dough,” Martinez says. “It’s the same thing with the taco meat. And they serve us ices instead of juice,” referring to the liquids...

Before the nation's Food Nanny guilt-trips you into ditching boxed dinners on a frazzled night, know this: The first lady profited from cheese dust before she was against it. In the new issue of Cooking Light magazine, Michelle Obama takes another sanctimonious stand against processed foods. The occasion of this latest hectoring is a month-long celebration of the fifth anniversary of her Let's Move initiative. This time, she spins a slickly crafted tale of how her former personal chef challenged daughter Malia several years ago to turn a block of cheese into powder. "She sat there for 30 minutes trying...

First lady Michelle Obama is “confident” that controversial changes to school lunch programs undertaken after her lobbying will “eventually be embraced by kids.” In an interview with Cooking Light magazine to mark the fifth anniversary of her Let’s Move initiative, the first lady says that she sees the effort as “generational.” Eventually, Obama argues, schools will be filled with children who never knew meals that did not conform to new nutritional standards.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As Congress readies to reauthorize Michelle Obama’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act this year, students and parents continue to post photographic evidence of the program’s shortcomings. The School Nutrition Association is weighing in, too. ” … Some of USDA’s regulations under the law have unnecessarily increased costs and waste for school meal programs and caused many students to swap healthy school meals for junk food fare,” says SNA CEO Patricia Montague in a news release. The group points out 1.4 million fewer children are eating school lunches since the rules championed by First Lady Michelle Obama were implemented....

Before reading this article, you should be warned, what this student was served at lunch is truly disgusting to look at. A 15-year-old student posted online earlier this month the following picture of the school lunch he received: The original poster wrote with the submission, "Complaining about school lunches? Here's my school's 'Philly Cheese Steak.'" Recently, major changes came to school lunches because of the efforts of the First Lady, Michelle Obama. The USDA claims that "the new standards align school meals with the latest nutrition science and the real world circumstances of America’s schools." It was only recently that...

A Kirksville, Mo. doctor righteously and very satisfyingly slapped down a substitute teacher after she sent a note home condemning the lunch his second-grade daughter had brought to school. The doctor and mad dad is Justin Puckett, reports ABC News. As Puckett — who is certified in obesity medicine — later observed to the principal at the school, the teacher and a cafeteria worker didn’t see the whole lunch. Sure, they saw a pickle, a bag of marshmallows, some Ritz crackers and four tiny chocolate bars. Importantly, what the sub and the lunch lady missed were four pieces of ham...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Many of the students at Kingsley Elementary School in a low-income neighborhood of Los Angeles eat breakfast and lunch provided by the school. For the nearly 100 enrolled in the after-school program, another meal is served: supper. The nation’s second largest school district is doubling the number of students served dinner, with an eye toward eventually offering it at every school. It’s a growing trend: Nationwide, the number of students served dinner or an after-school snack soared to nearly 1 million last year. “When kids are hungry, they don’t pay attention,” said Bennett Kayser, a member...

Students across the United States are getting a taste of progressivism. And it doesn’t seem to please their palates. The implementation of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity lunch standards is encountering backlash from students and school administrators across the country. The program seems to have taught them a valuable lesson in the realities of progressivism -- that when American voters give up power to busy-body progressives, the result is more control over their lives and the loss of individual liberties. They responded to this newfound reality with boycotts, social media angst, and filled trash cans instead of filled bellies.According to the Government...

President Obama was not the only member of his household that fought to improve the P-20 education system in 2014. Michelle Obama carried out an impressive education agenda that rivaled her husband's in many respects. It seems that the two are a tag team for the ages, and P-20 education is lucky to have this duo championing it. Michelle Obama spent 2014 front and center for education -- in more ways than one. 1. First Lady endorses arts education. This past spring, First Lady Michelle Obama joined the stage with middle- and high-schoolers who performed in the first ever White...

>Whatâ€™s on the GOP agenda for 2015? The Keystone Pipeline, tax reform, passing a budgetâ€¦ those are all so last year. How about school lunches?. . .Everyone would like to see kids eating nutritious meals, and thereâ€™s really no reason they canâ€™t. But as with so many other things in the education arena, that responsibility falls on the parents. They have to educate their children as to what they should be looking for and why itâ€™s important. I manage to eat some veggies every day and fruit as often as I can manage, but in order for that to work...

ROGERS, Ark. â€“ The garbage cans are becoming morbidly obese at Rogers High School.â€śWeâ€™re feeding trash cans a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables,â€ť Robin Kinder, president of the Arkansas School Nutrition Association and assistant child nutrition director for Springdale Public Schools, tells NWAonline.com.In addition to changing the lunch menu to make it â€śhealthier,â€ť the school sends students back into the line if they fail to take the required fruits and vegetables mandated by the overhaul of the National School Lunch Program.â€śIt would just go straight to the trash sometimes,â€ť Estefany Corleto, a junior at Rogers High School, says of...

By making herself queen of the school lunchroom, Michelle Obama has managed to screw things up almost as badly as Obamacare has screwed up health insurance, albeit on a smaller scale. Â The Twitter hashtag #thanksmichelleobama accompanying pictures of inedible school cafeteria slop is evidence that a generation of nanny state-hating youngsters will eventually enter the voting booth, just as many of their parents are turning on Democrats over Obamacare. Â And like Obamacare devastates family finances with high deductibles and cost increases for many, Â the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act that Mrs. Obama pushed so hard is devastating the finances of...

More than half of the nation’s school cafeteria workers expect to lose money selling low-salt, low-fat meals pushed by first lady Michelle Obama, a “serious” problem that threatens the programs, according to a survey of food providers.The School Nutrition Association, which is planning to demand changes to the meal requirements to make the food more attractive to students, found that 50.35 percent of cafeteria officials surveyed expect that serving the food will “exceed revenue” next year.“Of the 92 percent of respondents reporting that rising costs pose a ‘serious’ or ‘moderate’ challenge to their programs, 70 percent indicated ‘serious,’” said the...

Health advocates are blasting provisions in federal funding legislation that are seen as dialing back school nutrition standards, even as the White House seeks to downplay the riders as “minor adjustments” to the first lady’s signature policy. The bill known as “cromnibus,” contains language that would allow states to exempt struggling districts from having to offer all whole grain products and eases requirements for schools to reduce sodium levels. Critics who lobbied against more restrictive nutrition rules hailed the language as a win. The American Heart Association, meanwhile, worries the changes will open the door for more legislation that will...

While many public school students complain about lunchtime mush that meets White House calorie guidelines, President Barack Obama's daughters are dining on gourmet meals at a posh private school in Washington. School kids have been moaning about tasteless fare local governments adopt to comply with first lady Michelle Obama’s war on the waistline and posting photos of the mystery meals online. The Sidwell Friends School, the $36,000-a-year private academy attended by Malia and Sasha Obama, also posts its menus on the Internet. The Daily Caller discovered that Sidwell students eat well. Thursday’s lunch included: potato sausage soup, firecracker slaw, California...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Most American kids attend public schools. On the other hand, the first daughters, Malia and Sasha, attend Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. Tuition per student at the private school is $36,264 per year (but that includes a hot lunch). For Tuesday, Dec. 9, the scrumptious, bountiful lunch menu for both the middle school and the upper school at Sidwell Friends is: Potato Sausage Soup; Firecracker Slaw; California Chef’s Salad; All Natural Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings; Sweet Potato Black Bean Bake; Sautéed Local Greens; Gemelli Alfredo; Sliced Pineapple This menu of completely free lunch items certainly sounds delicious and nutritious....

Michelle Obama has been a champion of increased health standards for school lunches in her time as First Lady. As part of her Let's Move! program and the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, there have been new nutrition standards for public schools. Republicans say that the standards are unnecessary, intrusive, trample on local school perogatives, and is too expensive. Congress is making moves to relax these new guidelines:

FULL TITLE: 'Prisoners eat better food': Students hit back at Michelle Obama's school lunch program with pictures of woeful servings School lunches have never been known for being appetizing — but these ones are particularly disgusting. Students across America are taking it to social media to demonstrate against the school meal rules championed by First Lady Michelle Obama. They're using the sarcastic hashtag 'ThanksMichelleObama' and posting pictures of piles of mushy lunches, unreasonably small portions and the kind of fare that has some students saying even 'prisoners eat better food.' Scroll down for video

November 22, 2014, 03:04 pm #ThanksMichelleObama: Students lash out By Kevin Cirilli Students across the country are once again taking to social media to tweet against first lady Michelle Obama's nutritional regulations they claim are ruining their school lunches. The hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama trended nationally as teenagers shared their disgust for unsavory Thanksgiving school lunches. Here's a taste of some of the tweets:

Let’s face it: school lunches are not exactly culinary masterpieces. But some fed-up students have been sharing some down-right disgusting-looking meals using the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama on social media. It’s not a new thing. These posts have been around when school started up in August. But as students get ready for the year’s biggest food holiday, the trend is picking up steam. …

“Researchers are finding that Washington bureaucrats can get children to ‘choose’ healthy foods, but getting students to eat them is another task altogether.” “We have been thinking that if young children choose healthy food, they will eat it,” Susan M. Gross, PhD, MPH, a research associate in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg of Public Health “But our research shows that is not necessarily so.” – eagnews There’s a message in there somewhere. Something like “you can lead a horse to water… butt if you fill the trough with vinegar instead...

Students at a Wisconsin high school are boycotting the lunch program, upset over tiny portions and declining quality. Meghan Hellrood, a senior at D.C. Everest High School in Weston, talked to Ainsley Earhardt this morning to explain why she’s leading the protest against the federal program, which was championed by First Lady Michelle Obama. […] “It’s not actually giving us healthy foods. It’s giving us small portions of very processed foods. Kids aren’t happy about that,” said Hellrood, referring to the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, which was passed in 2010 as part of an effort to combat childhood obesity....

While Michelle Obama’s skimpy school lunch mandates have been widely rejected by students and schools, the elite private school attended by both Obama daughters will be serving chicken wings and potato chips on Wednesday. Sidwell Friends is the elite private school with a $36,264 tuition per child where President Obama sent his daughtersinstead of Cardozo high school, a government-run school in Washington, D.C. After Wednesday’s chicken wings , on Thursday Obama’s daughters can get a Cuban sandwich. Pasco County Schools in Florida had to eliminate Cuban sandwiches because they violated Michelle Obama’s lunch standards. Land O’ Lakes High had gone...

Politics: As children across America tweet photos of their meager school lunches, Gitmo detainees are fattening up and illegal aliens are getting second helpings. How our government sets priorities is just amazing. 'Our greatest assets are our children," President Obama said last month as he signed something called "America's Promise Summit Declaration" that pledged in part to keep children "healthy." But healthy's hardly the word that comes to mind when you read all the "#thanksObama" commentary on Twitter and other social media by disgusted kids posting photos of their government-issued victuals. In a bid to meet the rigid regulations of...